Monday was the first time in eight years that the St. Louis Blues had skated onto HP Pavilion ice for a playoff game. And no matter the outcome, it was going to be far less bizarre than the last time.
"Even now, I find it kind of hard to believe," said Blues defenseman Barret Jackman, the only player remaining on the team's roster from 2004. "You were thinking, you know, this can't happen in the NHL."
But incredibly, it did happen. Mike Danton, one of Jackman's teammates, wound up being arrested in San Jose for conspiracy to commit murder for hire. Danton was then detained at Santa Clara County Jail for two weeks before returning to Missouri and pleading guilty to the crime--although thankfully, no murder ever took place. It is still regarded as one of the strangest and saddest episodes in hockey history.
The story began the night of April 15, when the Blues lost Game 5 of their first round series to the Sharks and were eliminated from the Stanley Cup tournament. The St. Louis players then returned to their San Jose hotel to spend the night. They were scheduled to fly home on the team charter the following morning.
All except for Danton, who had made his own arrangements. He went to San Jose Mineta International Airport early on the morning of April 16 -- eight years ago Monday -- to take a commercial flight back to St. Louis. But before Danton could board the plane, he was arrested by federal marshals. The FBI had uncovered
-- and thwarted -- a plot that involved Danton offering $10,000 to a hit-man who was supposed to kill David Frost, who at the time was Danton's agent and was staying at Danton's apartment on the outskirts of St. Louis.Word of the shocking arrest quickly made its way back to the Blues' hotel.
"It was just kind of weird," Jackman remembered, "to come down the elevator and see all the FBI agents. They swarmed all over his room. His roommate didn't know what to think."
As the crime's details unfolded, things only grew more eerie and wild. The entire sordid saga is laid out in "The Lost Dream," a book about Danton's troubled life authored by Toronto newspaper columnist Steve Simmons.
Danton did not cooperate with Simmons, who did interview most of the other principals. Danton's birth name was Mike Jefferson, but he had it legally changed after an estrangement from his parents in suburban Toronto. That split was influenced by Danton's relationship with Frost, a youth hockey coach who eventually became Danton's agent. Frost has a nefarious reputation in Canada. He was tried but not convicted on 12 counts of sexual exploitation regarding his players and others.
It's still not 100 percent clear why Danton wanted to have Frost killed. The FBI investigation concluded it was because Frost, in an attempt to keep Danton as a client, had threatened to expose certain elements of Danton's lifestyle that might harm his NHL future. However, Danton's guilty plea ended any chance of learning his true motive.
Jackman, one morning after a Blues practice last week, was still baffled when we mulled over those weeks in 2004. He remembered attending Danton's indictment hearing along with several other Blues' teammates.
"It was like you were watching a play," Jackman said. "He was in shackles and an orange jail suit. There was a lot of legal talk and then he left the room."
And that's pretty much the last any St. Louis player saw of him. Danton was sentenced to seven and a half years for orchestrating a conspiracy to commit interstate murder. He was released on parole in 2009 after serving 63 months of his sentence. In an apparent attempt to find peace, he then enrolled at St. Mary's University in far-flung Nova Scotia and played on the school's hockey team while working toward a degree. At age 31, he returned to pro hockey this season in Europe, playing for clubs in Sweden and the Czech Republic. He has given few interviews.
"It seems like his life is going pretty well," Jackman said last week. "That's good to hear. But he hasn't contacted anyone on our team, as far as I know."
Jackman wouldn't mind seeing Danton again. On his previous team, the New Jersey Devils, he had earned a reputation as a loner and odd duck. In Simmons' book, he documents many occasions when Danton ignored teammates and spent a lot of time on his cell phone talking to Frost, portrayed as a Svengali figure. But according to Jackman, when Danton joined the Blues for the 2003-04 season as a fourth-line banger, he blossomed as both a player and as a person. In fact, he scored the only goal of his NHL playoff career in Game Four of the Sharks-Blues series.
"I thought he was coming out of his shell," Jackman said. "We had a pretty good group of guys, and you had to have a thick skin, but he was opening up and becoming part of it, giving it right back. I thought he was a good guy."
Eight years later, Danton's ghost hardly haunts the Sharks-Blues series. The St. Louis franchise has moved on and so have the Blues players. But at least one person did not forget the anniversary of perhaps the NHL's most bizarrely inexplicable day ever.
Monday afternoon, wherever Danton was, he used his Twitter account to post this message: "Eight years ago today my life was altered forever. I'm in a pretty good place today and I've got no regrets. Things happen for a reason."
Meanwhile, back in San Jose where Danton's life-altering moment occurred, the Blues took the ice and tried to win a hockey game.
Contact Mark Purdy at mpurdy@mercurynews.com or 408-920-5092.
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